


What My Senses Tell Me

by holdouttrout



Category: Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-01-28
Updated: 2008-01-28
Packaged: 2017-11-15 21:32:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 888
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/531948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/holdouttrout/pseuds/holdouttrout
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Trouble always catches up with us. That's why I'm here, in his arms, hoping for a miracle. Six drabbles forming one scene.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. What My Senses Tell Me

**Sixth Sense.**

Before I know anything else, before I know who I am, I know he’s here with me. It’s the same feeling that told me to find Luke when we were escaping from Bespin, and I find it oddly disturbing I can sense things in this way now.

I don’t remember what happened, but I know it’s bad. I know that because he knows it, and I feel his fear.

I try to reach him, but it’s like hitting a brick wall. For the first time I’m sad because he doesn’t share my gift. If he did, I might comfort him.

**Smell.**

Gradually I become aware of something physical. Anyone who’s been in a trash compactor knows smells can hit you the same way a stun bolt can. It’s nothing you can touch, but it is very real.

His smell hits me all at once, and with it, all the memories I have piled up of him. Mostly I remember the places we were, the planets we’ve seen together. The  _Falcon_. I can’t think of one without the other, now.

Today I smell too many things to count. I don’t even try to sort through them.

He smells perfect. That is enough.

**Sound.**

It hurts. I hurt, all the way down my body, but the noise rings its way into my head and it’s worse than all the pain I half-feel from the slices and bruises and cracked ribs.

“It’s going to be all right, princess. Just hang on until your brother gets here.”

His voice hurts me, every syllable clanging around my empty head. He stops. Maybe I winced. I’d rather have the pain of hearing than have him silent like I’m already dead.

I work my throat, trying to get enough air to force it out again.

“Please. Don’t stop talking.”

**Touch.**

I am not safe, but I feel safe, because he is holding me. I know exactly how he holds me, my head braced against his chest, his knees supporting my back, his legs around mine. His arms are folded around my shoulders and chest. We have been here before, folded up like this. This is a cruel mockery of that restful pose.

He is trying to control his breathing because it’s a way of praying it will help mine. I’m concentrating on his fingers, which trace circles on my arms. I keep feeling his lips trace words into my hair.

**Taste.**

The blood is salty and thick in the back of my throat. It is probably one of the reasons I choke and shudder every time I try to breathe. It tickles me and I wonder if I have a nosebleed. It is a ridiculous thing to wonder, because even if I did, it will be my other injuries that kill me.

I should be thinking of better things. Memories of him, memories of exasperation I always suspected I’d miss if things went wrong. After all, these will be my last thoughts unless we somehow come up with another miracle today.

**Sight.**

Another hand grabs mine. I focus on it, recognizing the wires beneath the charred skin surface. Luke should take better care of himself.

I tilt my head back to center, ignoring the pounding in my ears from moving my head, feeling arms tighten around my body.

I see Luke frowning down at me, mouthing to me to be still, not to worry. I almost see the lines he’s drawing around my body in the Force, but I’m fading, and I sink into darkness. It’s not Luke I see last, though, but Han, brushing away one last hair from my eyes.


	2. Senses Failing

It was a riot of color: red and orange flowers that seemed to stand out more because the majority of the flowers were white.   
  
Han had refused to have only the white blooms, and had refused equally to have Leia dressed in her white senatorial gown. The committee members had looked at him like he was crazy, and one of them had even tried to argue with him. Han's furious look had quelled the dissent, so Leia was surrounded by the brightest, most fragrant flowers that could be found.  
  
Her hair was done up—which had actually caused more problems than the flowers, as for some reason the committee members had thought that she could let down in death what she never did in life—and she was dressed in an outfit Han especially liked: a silky blue dress she had tried to wear one night—a night they'd never made it out the door.  
  
He didn't tell the committee that part.  
  
The funeral was filled with stately speeches Han didn't hear, their empty words echoing through the hall, flying straight to the holo-recorders. Luke and Chewie sat on either side of him, their limbs pressed against his because there was no extra room, even for the family.  
  
It was later, with the smooth taste of Corellian brandy on his tongue, that he felt as if she were—not there, exactly—but he didn't miss the way Luke's eyes slid to the side, or the way his own fingers slipped and dropped his glass, or the way he left it half-full and wandered out alone, to collapse against the outside wall and look at the cold, irrational light of the stars.


End file.
